3 minute read
Trainer and jockey quotes after Divine Diosa wins the Take It To The Neds Level Handicap at Caulfield on Saturday.
Race Result:
1st: Divine Diosa (D Lane/M Ellerton & S Zahra) - $21
2nd: Basarwa (D Oliver/D O'Brien) - $20
3rd: I'm Thunderstruck (M Zahra/M Price & M Kent Jnr) - $1.60F
Winning Time: 1:28.67 Last 600m: N/A
Margins: 1¼L x 1¼L
It's an upset in R5.
— Racing.com (@Racing) June 26, 2021
Absolute peach from @LaneDamian on Divine Diosa. @ellertonzahra pic.twitter.com/SCmMlBboYE
Winning Trainer: Mathew Ellerton & Simon Zahra
"She's like a wife, you've got to work them out and keep them happy.
"She's been a real work-in-progress. She came of age in the spring and we thought we had a nice Oaks filly on our hands but as we set the bar up in distance she over-raced a lot of the way. She spent a fair bit of time away from the stable, came back and we kept her at the shorter trips for now. We're trying to teach her to drop her head and hit the line.
"You can't get out wide here today so the plan was to go back and just ride for luck and be one or two off the fence and hope the luck comes. It panned out really well, they fanned, she was last and a length off them. It panned out well, Damian rode her terrific and you've just got to ride the track the way it is."
Next Saturday possible: "We're not going to rule that out. We'll give her one more then put her away and give her another crack just to let her see what it is all about. We'll have to see how she pulls up.
"She's heading the right way, that's for sure."
Winning Jockey: Damian Lane
"She's been slightly difficult and she's probably underachieved so far. She's always shown good potential.
"At the start of this preparation she looked really good but then she went to Adelaide and lost her way a little. Came off the freshen up with a good run.
"During the spring we learnt that we couldn't ride her forward. She didn't seem to have that sort of stamina. We obviously lost a little bit of confidence knowing that we had to go back today but everything fell into place for her."
